THE CANVAS-BACK DUCK. 



BY WILLIAM BRUCE LEFFINGWELL. 



I HERE is a charm in the scenes of early life 

 that passing years can only recall in 

 most delightful memories, and 

 things we loved best, when 

 children, still cling fondly to 

 us, and our riper years only add to 

 their remembrances. Then it is that the boyish 

 hunter, when he arrives at manhood's estate, 

 recalls with deepest fervor those incidents which 

 afforded him the greatest pleasure, when, as a child, he 

 trod the carpet of the forest green, clambering the hill- 

 sides, or communed in sweetest harmony with the feath- 

 ered songsters in the glen, or, with hook, rod, and line, 

 made by his own ingenious lingers, captured the finny 

 tribe, in tempting spots, where his inquisitiveness taught 

 him to try; and so the man, when called upon by some 

 enthusiast to name the bird he prizes above all others, 

 will at once recall to mind the days when he was a 

 boy, and the lessons he learned then, under the silent 

 trees, studying the birds as Nature made them, in the 

 warm and budding spring-time, when the mellow wind 

 pervades forest, stream, and field, and instinct told these 

 birds to mate, build their nests, and rear their young. 



When one has, as a boy, had opportunities for study 

 and observation, has grown up among the wilds of semi- 

 civilization, and has passed hours, and days, watching 

 and studying birds in their wild state, the silvered years 



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